Will Trump Ultimately Be A Good Thing?

[Zardnaar]

Just to be clear Trumps terrible. So was Hoover.

Hoover handed the presidency to the Democrats for 20 years. The political landscape though lasted roughly form the 30s to 80s.

Anyway a poo lord like Trump xan inflict a huge amount of damage in a short amount of time. Ideals to me are a waste of time without the power to enact them.

For example generally I think the rich should pay more in tax. I'm not sure how much or the best way to do that. I don't care about the details to much.

Trump basically defeated himself along with the right in Australia and it looks like the conservatives in UK. Very incompetent governing ability that even BS and claims can't hide.

Eventually the right will have to moderate or face electoral oblivion imho. IDK when that will be but probably within the next 10-20 years. Less boomers and the younger voters don't swing right in large enough numbers.

So if you need to get stuff done (gsd) and the right being so repugnant will Trump end up enabling change?

 

[Birdjaguar]

If we are lucky the Dems can grab control of Congress and the WH for another two cycles. That would be some payback for the damage he has done across sop many aspects of US life.

 

[Zardnaar]

If we are lucky the Dems can grab control of Congress and the WH for another two cycles. That would be some payback for the damage he has done across sop many aspects of US life.

That's the basic idea. I can see this happening in YK for example.

 

[Angst]

depends on the framework you're using.

what trump did was innately destructive. it was not a good thing. it was bad.

but yea, someone machinegunning themselves (and others) in all of the feet may have repercussions as reactions in the future that are good.

the thing is that even within that framework of thinking, say hegel, something bad is never framed as a good thing, even if has a good outcome. historical structures may have better outcomes, the developments may be considered natural states, but i'm not sure they're argued as good.

then there are accelerationists that specifically think faster destruction is a good thing.

-

but that's not really your question. you ask, that if you dislike the base that gave trump power, regardless of trump himself, if you prefer the left-aligned to gain power, can conservatives lose power because of trump, and can the left-leaning gain power because of trump? i mean, yea.

we're still in the immediate fallout though, and there's plenty of people that don't seem to mind the abuses. we're not out of it; trump was a symbol of far right mainstreaming, and that hasn't just disappated after like him and eg. charlottesville (that also set such people back for a bit).

 

[Hygro]

While it does seem like the Dems have turned a corner from the overly centrist Clinton-Obama run, I don’t think conditions are so favorable that we get a big run. Covid was rough but the government response under both presidents was overall decent, it wasn’t 4 years of bank failures causing an artificial money crisis like 1929-1933. We don’t have a WW2 and there would need to be a democrat masquerading as a Republican a la Eisenhower to really seal the deal.

The New Deal with the war allowed America to reign in its capitalists to an incredible degree, something we haven’t at all done in this lead up.

While I don’t think Trump was materially bad enough to cause such a shift, we could get lucky for other reasons. Who knows. But I don’t see any reason to predict it.

 

[KMRblue1027]

No simply because of the the courts. SCOTUS is lost for a generation and major appeals courts are also stacked. Even if the left dominates in future elections it won't matter when an activist court overturns any legislation they don't like.

 

[Birdjaguar]

That would be sad.

 

[Cutlass]

Hoover handing the presidency to the Democrats for 20 years was one of the best thing in US history.

That said, Trump will not have that effect. Hoover was not evil. He just had the wrong policies. Trump is evil in all respects. People vote Trump because they want to burn in hell for all eternity.

Fascism can never be anything other than pure evil. Nothing other than pure anti Americanism. Never be anything other than anti Christian.

 

[amadeus]

Stevenson ran on ”a vote for Ike is a vote for Hoover” platform and lost. Reagan ousted Carter 6 years after Watergate.

I haven’t seen anything of such proportion from Trump to make me think he spells the end of the GOP. Could lose a cycle or two, but permanent damage would take a lot more than being a mediocre president.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Stevenson ran on ”a vote for Ike is a vote for Hoover” platform and lost. Reagan ousted Carter 6 years after Watergate.

I haven’t seen anything of such proportion from Trump to make me think he spells the end of the GOP. Could lose a cycle or two, but permanent damage would take a lot more than being a mediocre president.

The longer term issue for the GOP is how long will they be tethered to the far right for policy and platform concerns (if they ever go back to creating a platform). Maybe 30% of the US is solid far right and Americans are seeing right now how the far right does things. I do not think they are winning lots of new converts.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I don't see how, the main issues with USA, like it being just democrats and republicans that dominate the political space is still there even after Trump. Likely another person like Trump will become president in the future, maybe just in a few decades from now.

 

[Narz]

Fascism can never be anything other than pure evil... Never be anything other than anti Christian.

Christianity and fascism go well together.

The Bible is pro fascist, pro slavery, anti democratic. Sure there's some touchy feely stuff but the jist is follow the rules or you'll be punished and that people cannot be trusted to self govern, only god can govern.

 

[Narz]

To answer the question I don't think Trump's presidency was a good thing because environmental damage doesn't just bounce back.

The blow to America's self esteem was/is probably a good thing. But it wasn't necessary, anyone who's paying attention didn't need Trump to remind us our institutions are too corrupt, brittle and slow to deal w the challenges facing us.

 

[IglooDame]

Hoover (as far as I know) didn't actively erode democracy itself in this country. No, I think Trump is more of a Hitler than a Hoover.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Answer to thread title question: No.

Trump, and what he unleashed, will never be a good thing for American society.

It's still an unresolved question whether it will destroy our country entirely.

I'm starting to think it won't. That the checks against him, while slow in responding, are sure.

Bur regardless, the seeds that he planted will bear bad fruit for long after his own political demise and/or death.

 

[Remorseless1]

Trump is a symptom, not the disease. The "far right" has existed in the US before there was a US, and has been the weight trying to drag us into authoritarianism since 1789 and will always be there.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Trump massively exacerbated the disease, though, far beyond what any other GOP leader would have done.

 

[Narz]

Trump massively exacerbated the disease, though, far beyond what any other GOP leader would have done.

Could have done maybe... Someone like Rush Limbaugh would've been just as bad or worse

 

[Lexicus]

Could lose a cycle or two, but permanent damage would take a lot more than being a mediocre president.

Really, he tries to overthrow the government and he's mediocre?

Gosh, good thing he didn't try to anything really evil like trying to improve living conditions for Americans, the way the worst President ever, FDR, did.

Trump massively exacerbated the disease, though, far beyond what any other GOP leader would have done.

Hoover (as far as I know) didn't actively erode democracy itself in this country. No, I think Trump is more of a Hitler than a Hoover.

Viewing these two in isolation is basically false. The German Hoovers are a big reason Hitler got into power, because they helped create the conditions for the Nazis to become the largest party in the Reichstag. Similarly, I do not think Trump can be analyzed in isolation from those who created the conditions for him to win the election.

I also think there is some confusion here as people are conflating two things, the conservative "movement" and the GOP. Prior to the 1980s the GOP was not captured by the conservative movement, it was still fundamentally a liberal (in the broad sense of being in favor of a limited government, parliamentary process, private property etc) party. After the 1980s the GOP was irrevocably on the path toward Trump or something like him due to the fact that the GOP was the natural home for conservatives and the Democratic Party was defined by being anti-conservative ("liberal" here in the American sense meaning something like "progressive").

It is not the GOP per se, but conservatism, or more particularly modern (since the 1850s) American conservatism, which is fundamentally fascist, fundamentally anti-democratic, fundamentally racist and sexist, and so on. It is American conservatism, in seeking to enthrone minority/elite interest over the well-being of most people, must necessarily propagate itself through lies and distortions, using a racialized "other" as a villain to conceal the misdeeds of that same minority of elites.

This process of deception has been necessary for conservatism all through history but it was only in the technological and social context of the mid-20th century that it could become a truly concerted program of deception, and only much more recently in the 1990s has a conservative media apparatus emerged. This apparatus is extensive and it relies on the science of public relations to continuously (literally, on a daily and sometimes hourly basis) roll out narratives, test their impact on public opinion with polling and focus groups, and then adjust the narratives as indicated by this feedback, all to advance conservative political objectives.

It is unfortunate to say but focusing on Trump, individually, blaming him for the fundamental rot at the heart of American conservatism, is to drastically understate the extent of the problem and by extension to completely fail to understand what will be required to fix it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Could have done maybe... Someone like Rush Limbaugh would've been just as bad or worse

Rush spent 30 years on the radio working as hard as he could to divide the nation and undo democracy.